Roberta Blackman-Woods: I, too, welcome the appointment of the Secretary of State and his ministerial team to the new Department and to its first Question Time. Can the Minister say what the Government are doing to ensure that the expertise in British universities, such as the excellent Durham university in my constituency, is applied by industries so that jobs can be created on Durham and elsewhere? Does he accept that the proposed energy technologies institute provides a good model for that, and that the institute should come to the north-east?

Theresa May: I am grateful for your advice, Mr. Speaker. I was about to ask about a future item of business related to a more general issue. As that was not a matter of putting the interests of the House first, will the right hon. and learned Lady provide the House with a more accurate statement of her interpretation of her role as Leader of the House, and, given that she is also the chairman of the Labour party, will she touch on the duality of her role?
	On Monday, the Minister for Housing made a statement on her plans for more housing, but its contents were in the morning's press and a BBC correspondent even had a copy the previous weekend. On Tuesday, the Secretary of State for Transport made a statement on the railways, but its contents were debated that very morning on the "Today" programme. Yesterday, the Prime Minister made his statement on the detention of terror suspects, but he had already given the story to  The Sun. Will the right hon. and learned Lady take time from her other duties to ensure that all of her ministerial colleagues, including the Prime Minister, live up to his promise to announce policy to the House first?
	Also on Monday, the Prime Minister insinuated to the media—not to hon. Members—that he would consider reversing the liberalisation of licensing laws. His spin doctors later confirmed that there would be a review of policy. That comes after a half-announcement to review the classification of cannabis and a half-announcement to reverse the super-casinos policy. This is no way to announce policy, so will the Leader of the House tell the Prime Minister that if he wants to restore Parliament's powers, he should treat hon. Members with respect?
	On that same subject, the Prime Minister yesterday sneaked out 39 written statements and answers to five named day questions from Labour MPs. Those included statements on a £3.5 billion shortfall in CSA payments, plans for the abolition of 25 councils and the failure of the Youth Justice Board. Today, a further 30 written statements are planned, including one on a breach of data security for visa applications, one on the Government's climate change target and one on the cost of ministerial cars. So much for the post-spin era. Will the right hon. and learned Lady make a statement on that abuse of written ministerial statements?
	Finally, the European Council conclusions state:
	"National parliaments shall contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union".
	The Labour Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee has said:
	"This is a takeover of the rights of this Parliament".
	Parliament's representative on the former Convention says:
	"The case for a referendum is even stronger now".
	The right hon. and learned Lady says that she understands her duty to Parliament, so after the recess, will she make a statement on the consequences of the treaty for this sovereign Parliament?

Harriet Harman: On the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that Sir Ronald Flanagan will be giving his interim report in the summer. That Bill will then be considered in the usual way. If any amendments are to be brought forward by the Government or by hon. Members, the question will be whether they are within the remit of the long title, but I have heard the points that the hon. Gentleman has made and no doubt they will be reflected on by the Home Secretary as well.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether there could be a debate on flooding when the House returns. I can assure all hon. Members that the Secretaries of State for Communities and Local Government and for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will keep the House updated, possibly by way of written or oral statements, but they have come forward with as much information as they possibly can. If there is a need for a debate over and above the statement, no doubt my right hon. Friends will seek such a debate.
	There will be a debate on Tuesday 9 October on defence procurement, and that that would be an opportunity for the hon. Gentleman to raise the important issue of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport made a full statement on the railways on Tuesday and I am sure that, like all hon. Members, the hon. Gentleman was pleased to hear that more freight is now going by rail, passenger numbers are up and regulation of fares continues. We all want to see the contribution that the railways can make to tackling climate change stepped up. That is the view across Government.
	Hon. Members will know of the suggestion to update the antiquated process that means that petitions have to be in a particular form of words, otherwise they cannot be submitted, and simply get put in the bag behind Mr. Speaker's chair. I thank the Procedure Committee for the important work that it has done on the question of petitioning Parliament. It made many useful suggestions and the Government's response has been published and will be available from the Vote Office by the end of today.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether early-day motions that have attracted great concern could be the subject of a debate once a certain number of Members had signed them. However, it is always open to hon. Members to apply to debate issues on the Adjournment or to seek a Westminster Hall debate.
	As the hon. Gentleman knows, the question of the House sitting in September has been the subject of experiment, and the House has voted on the issue. I understand that the hon. Gentleman and—I hope—the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) received an advance copy of the document on petitions. It was certainly my intention that they should have an advance copy, but I hope that all hon. Members will be able to obtain a copy from the Vote Office shortly.

David Anderson: May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to early-motion 2009?
	That this House fully supports the IraqChild appeal launched by the UK-based Iraqi Association to raise £250,000 for emergency protection for children through the Andalus Medical Clinic in Baghdad; notes that children in Baghdad will suffer disproportionately this summer through sweltering heat, electricity shortages and lack of air conditioning in addition to the violence and sectarian strife which has led to the displacement of thousands of children and many orphans having to fend for themselves; further notes that terrorists are using children as decoys for sadistic killings, that one in eight Iraqi children died of disease or violence before reaching their fifth birthday in 2005, and that there are worryingly high levels of malnourishment; believes that this non-sectarian project, which was developed through a lengthy consultation process with concerned medical personnel in Baghdad and local non-governmental organizations, is credible; points out that, for example, £22 can buy a child's clothing pack, £48 can treat a child for diarrhoea and ear infection, £60 can pay for a qualified nurse to care for 10 children every week, £650 can pay for a medical doctor for a month to visit 10 families with children every week, and £1,580 can maintain running a children's clinic for a month for eight children everyday; and urges widespread moral and material assistance for this vital humanitarian initiative.
	It refers to the appeal for the children of Baghdad, wherein the Iraqi Association in this country is launching an appeal for £250,000 to raise money to develop a clinic in Baghdad to help with the one in eight children who will die this summer. I would ask that this be debated at the next sitting of the House, but there will not be a sitting over the summer and thousands of children will die. Can the Minister ensure that this motion gets to the relevant Departments, to see whether they can help to pay?

Stephen Williams: I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement.
	I welcome the tone of the statement and some of the intentions that lie behind it. As has been said, it has appeared on the same day as the Institute for Public Policy Research report. The  Daily Mail coverage is a caricature of the actual report—a Hogarth image of debauched behaviour by young people, which I do not accept and recognise as an accurate picture of young people in society today. I know that many young people participate in volunteering, raise money for charity and achieve in schools.
	I hope that the statement is the welcome start of a departure from some of the language of the Tony Blair era, namely the language of marching children to cash points, the language of dealing with feral youth and the language of imposing dispersal orders on young people, such as the fatuous dispersal order imposed on skateboarders in my constituency this week. I hope that it is a fresh approach that will empower young people.
	On money, the Minister's Department, unlike all other Whitehall Departments, has its comprehensive spending review settlement for 2008 to 2011. Will the Minister say how much of the various sums identified in the statement is genuinely new money, rather than recycled existing money? Specifically, how much of it is Government money as opposed to the money of local authorities, youth offending teams and primary care trusts? How much is expected to be raised on the rather flimsy financial basis of recovering unclaimed assets lying in bank accounts? If investment in youth is really important—I think that it is—is that the correct source of money for that important investment?
	The statement mentions that one of the aims is "empowerment", which I welcome. However, the only example that I could find in my brief perusal of the statement was for young people to have "influence" over 25 per cent. of local authority budgets by 2018, which is not exactly immediate empowerment. I expected the statement to say much more about how we can engage young people in citizenship and how we can ensure that every school and local authority encourages young people to participate in elections to the Youth Parliament. The Select Committee Chairman has left, but the recent Select Committee report, to which I was a signatory, recommends that every school should have a school council. If that were implemented, it would teach young people through practical action the skills of working together. I also hope that at some point we will have another debate about reducing the voting age to 16.
	Will the Minister work with the Minister for Schools and Learners in making sure that every school in the country teaches all aspects of the personal, social and health education curriculum and the social and emotional aspects of learning curriculum without opt-out? Many of the problems that have been caricatured in the  Daily Mail and that have been the subject of the crossfire between Government and Conservative Front Benchers could be dealt with positively in schools, if that curriculum were taught without exception.
	Investment in youth workers is important. Many hon. Members know that before I became a Member of Parliament my professional career for 17 years was as a tax consultant, but the first job that I was trained to do was as a children's play leader for the YMCA and for the local authority.  [ Interruption. ] It was good training for this atmosphere. I know that by working with young people, one can teach them how to trust and about teamwork. Importantly, one can teach them about risk, too, through games, which is something that has been missing in the past 10 years. Not only are those qualities good for children, but they will stand them in good stead in later life.
	The statement specifically mentions £25 million for the work force to attract graduates into youth work, which is worth while, but I wonder whether we can do more to encourage community leaders and senior citizens into youth work. People who have lost their jobs in other industries could also be retrained. That point particularly applies to men, because many young, disaffected men need male role models—they may not get it at home, but they could get it through the youth service.
	Can we have a statement about detached workers? Much of the language of the statement is about places to go and investment in youth centres, but it is people who will make the difference. Rather than imposing dispersal orders on skateboarders in Bristol, it would have been much better to have sent a detached youth worker to talk to the young people, to engage with them and to tackle what is perceived as their antisocial behaviour.
	Finally, the statement mentions "social and emotional skills". I think that values are important, too. Youth work has a great role to play in teaching young people tolerance and respect for other people in our diverse society. In particular, I would welcome an initiative to make anti-bullying work part of the youth service. I welcome much of the content of the statement, but the approach will succeed only if we engage with young people, rather than demonising them, and if we involve them in the construction of policies, rather than imposing policies on them.

Angela Browning: I should like to draw attention to yesterday's written ministerial statement, from column 68WS of the  Official Report onwards, on the Government's determination on the bids that they have received for councils to receive unitary status. I deplore the fact that the Government have made a written statement and that the Ministers concerned did not come to the Floor of the House with it. Contained in the statement is the fact that the Government are minded to implement the bid on behalf of Exeter city council to become a unitary authority.
	I and other hon. Members, on a cross-party basis, met Ministers during the consultation period—in fact, we had a constructive meeting with the Minister concerned. I want to draw attention to the five criteria that the Government have set themselves in deciding what would and would not qualify for unitary status, which are listed at column 69WS. The first criterion states that the bid
	"must be...supported by a broad cross section of partners and stakeholders".
	Last week I tabled a named day question to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government asking
	"whether it is her policy to approve unitary status only for those councils which command broad stakeholder support."
	Although the question was meant to have been answered by Tuesday, the Minister for Local Government replied:
	"I will answer this question shortly."
	I do not know how long "shortly" means in the House, but today is the last day on which we are sitting and the question should have been answered on Tuesday. I checked the letter board before coming into the Chamber and found that as yet I had received no reply.
	However, the issue is pertinent in respect of the criteria that have been named yet again in the ministerial statement, because I do not believe that the bid for Exeter commanded the full support of the community that was consulted. In fact, when I receive my reply, I anticipate that the statistics will show that 83 per cent. of the responses that the Government received, including those from members of the public, were against the city of Exeter being made into a unitary authority and that only 14 per cent. were in favour. If that is a true reflection of where the figures lie, there is an obvious reason why the Minister has delayed answering a straightforward question, in the light of the ministerial statement. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House, whom I welcome to her position on the Front Bench, will make it a matter of urgency to ensure that I receive that reply in terms before the close of play today.
	Another criterion was that the bid should
	"deliver value for money and equity on...services."—[ Official Report, 25 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 69WS.]
	The Government considered bids for unitary status in Lancashire, a large rural county, by both Burnley and Lancaster, but because of the impact on the rest of the county, the Government reckoned at the time—and I think have failed to implement unitary status for this reason—that those bids did not deliver equity on public services. Exactly the same argument can be deployed for the county of Devon, a large rural county with two moors that are national parks, where Torbay and Plymouth already have unitary status.
	If we take Exeter out of the Devon equation, we are left with a difficult situation for Exeter, which is far too small to be sustainable as a unitary authority in its own right, not least because there has just been a major restructuring of education in the city of Exeter, which was three-tier and is now two-tier, the cost of which is being borne under a private finance initiative county-wide. If Exeter is given unitary status, the city and the ratepayers of Exeter will have to pick up the long-term implications of that enormous PFI project. I am not just raising the issue from the point of view of a Member of Parliament representing a peripheral rural part of the 600 square miles of my county that abuts the city of Exeter. However, I am particularly concerned about the impact on the whole of Devon, which, if we take Exeter out of the equation is sparsely populated with a population of 93 people per square kilometre.
	We must also consider the economies of scale that can be achieved in some of the important services that have to be delivered, especially the complex care services delivered by the primary care trust across a rural area. Economies of scale of expertise can be pooled by the city of Exeter and the rest of the county, and there is clearly a question mark not only over the financial implications of taking Exeter out of the equation but over the subsequent ability to deliver acceptable, good quality services, particularly in an area with a large number of elderly people.
	I was not going to raise this issue, but as the matter has come to light today, I must now ask the Minister to ask her colleague to give me an answer to my question as a matter of urgency. The Government's decision about the city of Exeter in today's ministerial statement is profoundly flawed and will almost certainly be challenged. There is cross-party agreement on this, although perhaps not from my neighbour, the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), who holds ministerial office. I imagine that he will be batting for the other side on this matter. These issues cannot be taken in isolation in a county such as ours.
	I have watched on television the plight of the many people around the country who have suffered from their homes being flooded in the most dramatic way. I also speak from personal experience. In 1997, my house in Devon, in which I had lived for 30 years, was flooded by an overnight flash flood. It was the first time that it had ever happened. We left the house that night, and were unable to return for five months. It is the most traumatic experience that can happen to anyone.
	A lot is being said about the lessons to be learned from building on flood plains. Opinions vary as to whether the recent levels of rainfall are unique, and there was an interesting article in  The Sunday Telegraph last week by Philip Eden which gave the statistics from the 1960s, '70s and '80s. They showed that we are not experiencing unique levels of rainfall, but we clearly have to take account of what we now know about the predicted climate change when we propose to build on flood plains.
	There are proposals to build a new town, Cranbrook, in my constituency, starting with about 3,000 properties and building up to 10,000. It is a pretty big development. An environmental study was carried out into the consequences of building a new town on an area of land, much of which comprises flood plains. The Environment Agency has approved the proposals, saying that although
	"current guidance in PPG25 requires developers to avoid development within floodplain defined on the basis of the 1 in a 100 year (1per cent. probability) event,"
	it accepts that, in the case of Cranbrook, it would be defined on the basis of a 1 in 1,000- year event, which is much less likely to happen.
	The real point, however, with any large-scale development—goodness knows, a whole new town is pretty big—is that a lot depends on whether the infrastructure to help with the drainage, the run-off and all the other problems associated with a lot of new build will be put in place on time. My experience of developments of this scale is that, regardless of any negotiations about the infrastructure to be provided by the builders, that is almost the last thing to happen. We can see the consequences of that, especially as drainage infrastructure needs to be among the first things to be built, rather than the last. That involves spending money up front on the basis that the developers will anticipate getting more contracts to build and that the planning will go ahead as predicted.
	I will not rehearse the arguments about whether we should have this new town; that is a battle that I fought and lost many years ago. I will say to the Minister, however, that if we are genuinely to learn lessons, it cannot be acceptable to use predictive figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that have been on the books for a long time when planning large developments such as these. When this kind of infrastructure is required, we need to determine at what point in the development the developer should put it in. That will involve ensuring that the firms that win the contracts have the money and resources to provide that infrastructure, because there is often a question mark over their own viability. They usually want to sell the houses and get the money into the bank before they invest too much in any infrastructure other than the basic bits, usually the roads. If lessons are to be learned from the tragedy that many people have experienced in the past few days, that issue must be looked at, particularly in the context of planning policy guidance note 25.
	Finally, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I wish you, members of staff and all colleagues here present and elsewhere a very happy summer recess? Devon awaits you. It is looking glorious, as always. If you want a weekend break or have not yet thought about where to go, the county of Devon will welcome you all.

Harry Cohen: Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I start by offering my humble apologies to you, to the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons and to the Opposition spokesman? I shall not be able to be here for the winding-up speeches, as I have to go to a local health meeting at a hospital in my constituency. However, I shall read the whole debate with interest.
	It is customary to say that we should not adjourn until we have discussed a particular subject. I do want the House to adjourn today, but when we get back, I want us to have a full-scale, grown-up, informed debate on drugs policy, the drugs industry and the drugs trade. I am not talking about pharmaceuticals; I am talking about the illegal drugs trade and its domestic and international ramifications.
	I should like to draw to the attention of the House the best book on the subject that I have seen for years. It was published last year, and it is called "The Political Economy of Narcotics" by Julia Buxton, a senior research fellow at the university of Bradford. She gives a history of the subject, along with masses of information and a very good analysis. I got the book from the House of Commons Library, and I can tell that it is a good book because its source, the British Library, demanded it back straight away. I read it through to the end, however, and it should inform the debate. If there is more in-depth analysis of the subject, however, we should bring it forward. Indeed, the Government should bring forward their own in-depth analysis.
	Ms Buxton refers to the United Nations and the international drug institutions, and to "institutional crisis and decline". Yet I know, from a parliamentary answer that I have received, that the UK is a major donor to those institutions, and to this failing effort. She refers to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the UN international drug control programme and the International Narcotics Control Board. She talks of
	"the inability of the apparatus to revolutionize its working practices or to refocus policy."
	Because of the institutions' dependence on donor countries,
	"the mechanisms for debate, policy evaluation and review within the UN were limited and this further impeded the reform of UN and drug control approaches."
	She goes on to say that,
	"while there might be a lively debate on changing aspects of the national drug laws in some countries, the reality is that national governments have very limited room for manoeuvre in terms of developing domestic drug strategies."
	Importantly, she concludes:
	"This situation is regrettable because the system of international drug control does not work. All the statistical information shows that, rather than decreasing, the number of people who are producing, distributing and consuming harmful drugs is increasing. The expansion of the trade in drugs has been particularly pronounced since the collapse of Soviet communism in the early 1990s and it has accelerated in line with the globalization process. On that basis alone, drug control policies have failed. Not only have they failed, they are also counter-productive...The current control model has not adapted to the enormous changes that have occurred in production and consumption trends during the 1990s and 2000s. As a result, drug control strategies are no longer simply counter-productive; they are doing more harm than good."
	Four types of drugs are dealt with in the book: poppy for opium and heroin; coca for cocaine, crack and other derivatives; synthetic-type drugs such as LSD and ecstasy; cannabis and marijuana.
	The book also provides valuable information about the financial value of the drugs sector—estimated by the UN as in the region of $300 billion to $500 billion a year, which is more than the market value of steel, cars, pharmaceuticals, meat, chocolate, wine, wheat, coffee and tea. In 2003, the global retail cannabis market was worth an estimated $140 billion a year; cocaine $70 billion; opiates $65 billion; and synthetics $44 billion.
	In fact, the lucrative drugs market of north America accounted for 60 per cent. of amphetamine retail sales; 52 per cent. of ecstasy; and 62 per cent. of cocaine sales. That is interesting because America is the country most insistent on the prohibition policy—yet it has the biggest drugs market. What we have seen economically, because of the failure of the control system, is supply up, prices on the street down, demand up. Clearly, the current prohibition policy has failed.
	What worries me most is the connection with crime. As with alcohol prohibition, which led to Al Capone and the US mafia, drug prohibition creates the most dangerous organised criminal gangs and threatens civil society beyond just drugs. For example, in Columbia, three presidential candidates were assassinated as a result of the drugs trade. The drugs industry almost went to war with the state in that particular case.
	The book notes that drugs prohibition has been advocated by the US Christian evangelists, who also brought in alcohol prohibition: the US likes bans and prohibition. I see that its policy on drugs is "Just say no". That same phrase, by the way, applies to HIV/AIDS in Africa—but again it is not realistic. The British and US Governments have fallen out over that issue and we recommend supplying condoms. America says no to global abortion rights, but abortion should be a right. I note that our International Development Ministers are to address the Marie Stopes conference—again that shows that we are adopting a different position from that in the US. If the US will not change, we should be prepared to adopt a different policy on drugs. The book also points out that US foreign policy takes precedence over its counter-drugs policy. The US will condone drug states or drug players if that is seen to be in its best interests. That factor will be used against whoever the US regards as its enemy.
	The drugs industry and the prohibition strategy, which makes it so profitable, lead to wars—Afghanistan is a clear example—and narco-states such as Columbia. That was the status of that country in the past and perhaps still now. The response is unreasonable militarisation and the mass denial of civil liberties; and environmental damage when crops are sprayed. There are also employment and livelihood issues. Bolivia is cited as having almost half a million people—16 per cent. of the work force at one point—employed in the drug industry. As we know from Afghanistan, people often have no other feasible livelihood. While the trade remains illegal, producers get a good price and the process is highly organised. There would be a better chance for alternative production to be pursued if the bottom were to fall out of the market.
	Julia Buxton says that the prohibition conventions of international organisations are out of date. They were brought in before the HIV/AIDS epidemic, before the collapse of communism and before globalisation. She argues that they spread harm while the real policy should be one of reducing harm. She refers to HIV/AIDS and drugs in prisons. Clean needle supply would help to combat the disease, and even safe supply could be justified. That would be better than the current practice, which ends up causing more HIV/AIDS as a result of dirty needles. The choice does not have to be between total prohibition or total liberalisation; Julia Buxton suggests that we could have a third way through regulation and an element of control. That is attractive because it would remove the worst of the criminality.
	Let the House consider the equivalent industries that are also often viewed as unsavoury. There is the sex industry, for example. There are some bans, quite rightly in some respects, but that industry is not totally banned; indeed, most of it is legal and highly profitable, however unsavoury. The arms industry—most of us detest it—is not illegal; it is regulated. Tobacco is another example; it is legal, but we are quite rightly imposing ever more constraints on it. Alcohol is licensed. There is a third way, a third option, that could be adopted for drugs policy.
	Whenever this matter is discussed, the debate is seldom thorough. It is all about soundbites—a simple matter of whether we are tough or soft on drugs. I admit that drugs have an impact on our streets and even in people's homes when it affects their loved ones. It is, of course, a political issue, but we need to have a proper debate about it. I believe that we need to do what is best for public health and for society as a whole. I urge the House to have that discussion.

Simon Hughes: I shall limit my remarks to the time recommended by Mr. Deputy Speaker in order to maximise the opportunity for all colleagues to contribute to the debate. I would like to put one national issue—mentioned earlier in the announcement of forthcoming business—on the agenda and then discuss issues related to my part of London.
	On the national issue, I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will give us an update on whether active consideration is being given to the case of the Sri Lankan Tamils on hunger strike in Harmondsworth, which is causing great concern not just in the Tamil community, but more widely. The case is predictable; it is about people who are afraid to go back to their own country, given the terrible civil war. Many of us would encourage the new team at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to put Sri Lanka high on its agenda. It used to be British; it is a Commonwealth country; it is a great country—but it will be a truly great country only when it has become peaceful for all the communities living there, whether Simla, Tamil or others. I am sure that we all share that objective.
	Moving on to issues about London, my borough has a population of between 200,000 and 250,000. Like all inner-London boroughs, a significant increase in population is projected over the next 10 years. The official figures show that, but last night's Adjournment debate suggested that they may well be under-estimates and that the real figures are much higher.
	In that context, housing is, as always, a huge London issue. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will confirm that the good words about housing, particularly council housing, in the Government's recent statements represent a willingness to talk to boroughs and local housing authorities about the ability to build more council housing if that is what the people and their elected representatives want. There should no longer be any disincentives against council housing, forcing people to go down other routes. Council housing is often as well built and as well managed as any other housing. Our borough has the largest council housing stock in London, with more than 40,000 rented properties and another 20,000 bought under the right-to-buy arrangements. All three parties in the borough are determined to sustain that; we are all committed to that means of continuing to meet housing needs.
	In that context—and in the context of the great environmental debate—we would also like the Government to think more about funding not just decent homes initiatives, as they have done across England, but environmental initiatives that would allow the best heating systems and the least wasteful energy systems to be used. We have district heating systems, but they are old style. If we are to make properties for the future, we need, bluntly, to retrofit new combined heat and power systems. That has a cost, and we would be willing to work with Government to make sure that we pilot such proposals on estates such as the Four Squares, the Manor and the Rennie, which are old but have decent homes. If they had modern heating that did not waste energy, that would be progress.
	Secondly, I want to raise a health issue. South London Members of Parliament, my friend the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) who is present, and all other Members who represent Southwark and Lambeth seats, kept telling the previous Prime Minister's Administration that it was a bad idea to endorse the closure of the 24-hour emergency clinic for the mentally ill at the Maudsley hospital on Denmark hill—the most well known London and national hospital for mental illness. Sadly, that 24-hour clinic has been closed. A promise had been made to open decent alternative facilities on the King's college site that would separate the mentally ill and non-mentally ill. That has not happened, and it does not look as though it will. I hope that Health Ministers will reconsider that decision, and I have written to the Secretary of State to that effect. A review is needed. Tonight, I hope to present another petition from users of those facilities and their friends and families. It is not appropriate to deal with difficult mentally ill patients at one of the busiest accident and emergency departments in London and Britain.
	Thirdly, given the announcements made, many parliamentary colleagues have post office closures looming in their constituencies. My request relates to a Crown post office in my constituency that has an uncertain future. A few post offices, of which Borough high street is one, have had a stay of closure without an outcome, and further closures of sub-post offices around the country are in prospect. Before we start having discussions and are given the list, will the Government at least insist that the Post Office provide the facts that we need to evaluate the case? The Post Office has been dreadful at sharing the facts; it always says that it cannot tell us. We cannot engage in debate if we do not know how many users a post office has, or what its turnover is. If we get the facts, we can have an honest debate about the relative merits of post offices. The four Crown post offices in my patch have been much busier since the sub-post offices that previously existed were closed. The facts need to be provided, and then I will happily engage in debate in defence of my remaining post offices.
	Lastly, I want to raise issues relating to transport, including train, tram and tube services. On trains, the Secretary of State for Transport's welcome announcement on Tuesday about investment in the railways left in abeyance the issue of whether London will get Crossrail. There is a united cross-party view that London transport will be hugely better if it has an east-west link. We urge the Government to come down on the side of investment in Crossrail sooner rather than later. I know that the private Bill is going through the House, but a green light for Crossrail is needed soon.
	Another major, strategic London-related announcement was on Thameslink, which is to have a £5.5 billion investment. That north-south link goes through my constituency, crossing Blackfriars bridge. Thameslink is a very good idea, but has one problem, which I have raised over and again—the threat posed to Borough market and the area around Southwark cathedral by the impact of the scheme. I put on record that if Network Rail and Thameslink are to sustain the support of the community—but more importantly, protect one of London's heritage sites that has associations with Dickens, a cathedral at London bridge that goes back 1,400 years and Borough market, which is wholesale and retail—an inappropriate viaduct and the demolition of lots of listed buildings is not the way to proceed. There must be ways of accommodating the double-width viaduct without destroying the heritage of that wonderful part of London. Huge support has been received from across parties and from people all over the world who are worried about Borough market. Let us say yes to Thameslink, but to a Thameslink that does not ruin Borough market. We cannot rebuild history or remake Dickensian, historic London.
	On the tram, I want to make a plea for the comprehensive funding review to direct adequate funding to Transport for London for good London projects, which would significantly reduce congestion, motoring and environmental harm. The first proposal in that regard is the cross-river tram, which is widely supported. London currently has two tram proposals in the pipeline: the Uxbridge road tram, which is not very popular; and the north-south London tram, which would go from Camden Town in the north down to Peckham and Brixton in the south, crossing Waterloo bridge and going through my constituency at Elephant and Castle, for which a fantastic new regeneration scheme has been announced this week. We need to know that the money is available to do it. If TfL has the money, the Mayor will say yes. My understanding is that if Crossrail gets the green light, and the money is there for one tram, it is likely that we can have the north-south London tram, because an east-west train will not be needed as much if we get Crossrail. That is logical.
	People north of the river—in the posher bits of Camden, I understand—might be a bit nervous about the thought of a tram going past their exclusive houses and giving them grief in some of the leafier squares. I hope that that problem can be resolved. Even posh people can go on trams and benefit from them. People with expensive houses might even see their house prices going up, not down. Can we at least have the money to allow us to have what is not a cross-river tram if it stops south of the river, having started south of the river? We want the tram to go from Brixton and Peckham to Waterloo, and at least over to Aldwych. If the good burghers—I use my words carefully—of Camden do not want it to go further north than the Aldwych, that is their problem; they are mistaken.
	Finally, London has two tube issues, which are not merely related to south London. South London has 38 tube stations, and north London has 200—a gross inequity, as I am sure that the Deputy Leader of the House will agree. On the first issue, everyone agrees that the extension of the East London line is a good project, which is waiting for the funds to be continued. Work is starting, and the line will close later in the year as preparations are made. In the first phase, it will run from Dalston junction down to New Cross, Crystal Palace and West Croydon; at the moment, it just goes from Shoreditch to New Cross and New Cross Gate. The second phase will eventually take it to Clapham junction via Surrey Canal Road. It will link all the bits of the system that are not currently linked. One will therefore be able to get on to the East London line via the Victoria line at Brixton, for example.
	It will be no good, however, if the comprehensive spending review does not provide the money. I am a big fan of the line, which will hugely reduce traffic in east London. A lot of people will be able to go to Canary Wharf from south London—crossing the river is difficult, because there are not many crossing points. It would be a hugely valuable investment, so may I make a big plea that Transport for London be given enough money to allow the East London line to go ahead as planned?
	The second tube issue relates to Metronet and its consequences. The Prime Minister has done many good things in his political career, but one of the bad things that he did was to insist on the public-private partnership for the London underground. That was always going to come to grief, and it has; and Metronet has come to grief. The impact of that is that all the restoration work, and the work on the lines affected, including the Bakerloo line at Elephant and Castle, is at risk because we do not know who will be doing it. Will the Deputy Leader of the House please take back to her colleagues, including the Prime Minister, the new Chancellor and the new Transport Secretary, the message that such a scheme cannot be allowed again? More importantly, we need the security that any scheme will be viable for all its users, if we are to have confidence in the London tube.

Ian Gibson: Even the most fervent or rabid fans of the school academy programme would find it hard to justify the fact that Heartsease high school in my constituency could be turned into such an academy. The two sponsors have each put money into the programme—up to £2 million. One is a Pentecostal ex-car dealer and the other is the Bishop of Norwich. It seems to be a phenomenon raging across the country these days. Nevertheless, we are in the middle of a consultation, which ends on 20 August, from which we will find out the views of at least some of the people in my constituency.
	I will not bore hon. Members with all the honeyed words that are said about the aim of such academies and schools: providing a lovely new building, which is welcome, and making a contribution to people's lives and so on. We have all seen those words. I do not think that I would find anyone who would ever disagree with that, whatever position they took. The school no longer appertains to be a faith school. I say that because, in its original documentation, it said:
	"there is an opportunity to support an academy in Heartsease. This derives from our faith that the love of God should be seen in our lives"
	in such a lively school. That has changed as the opposition has grown. It is now to be an open academy of the best sort and to be socially non-divisive—ethnic, and religious diversity will be the favour of the month.
	I should say too that it is a school that can improve; it has had trouble in the past. That was the original criterion for such academies. Let me quote from its Ofsted report following its hard years. In February 2007, inspectors said:
	"This is a satisfactory and improving school. It has overcome significant turbulence caused by recent changes to headship"—
	somebody whom I taught at university—
	"and governance and it is now much more stable"
	and there is a great spirit. It also interacts through the sixth form with the local Blyth-Jex high school and Sprowston high school. With the new middle school and early entry to secondary schools, there will be more pupils there than ever. I will say more about that later.
	One wonders about the vision for the school, because it is not always clear. When we enter discussions with the sponsors and others they say that they are going to have environmentalism—well, everyone says that these days—but they do not define exactly what that means in teaching in a school. They are of course to have their specialism, which is engineering. The school achieved specialist status in engineering. It is pretty rare in this country to take that on. It is a hard area to get people interested in, but by gosh when they do get into it they are interested and go on to universities and other places. The vision of how those things will merge has not been spelled out clearly and we have not seen any documentation explaining it.
	On a wide range of value-added measures of attainment, the school is among the most improved in the country. It has improved at all key stages. It dispirits people when they see that that is not rewarded and that perhaps many of the teachers and others will lose their jobs. It will have its new glossy buildings, presumably, and its ICT facilities and it might raise standards, but the question is how those standards will be raised. Will it be by diversion of pupils from other schools into the academy because of the attraction of it? Will it really be because of the Christian ethos and what is taught there—sustainable development or whatever? Will that bring people to that school to raise the numbers from about 600 to perhaps 900? They will have to come from the other schools in that district.
	One thing that has really established Norwich schools has been the interaction between them. Norwich is not north and south; that is only a constituency matter and two MPs. There is a unitary educational system, where the schools work together and through the years they have interchanged heads and helped each other. The products from our schools—the young people—go on to do excellent work elsewhere; that is second to none. Therefore, social grounds alone may have helped to develop that school.
	I am also concerned about the questionnaire that has gone out, which is quite interesting. If ever there were a questionnaire that you wanted to fail, this is it. The questions are biased and loaded. It is amazing. I will take just one example:
	"Do you agree with the sponsor's vision for the proposed new Academy? 'We believe in the unique worth of each child'. Yes, No, Undecided".
	Who could ever be undecided about that kind of question? There are 16 questions just like that, for which the obvious answer is that Heartsease school, as it is now, is rubbish and we need an academy to make it better. No reasons are given. It is just pushing people in that direction. Many people have pointed that out. I am amazed that a county council—Norfolk county council—can allow such a questionnaire to go out in its name. I wonder as well about the Christian sponsors allowing that to happen.
	One other thing gravitates against giving the school academy status. Yesterday, there was a statement—it has already been referred to—that unitary status is coming Norwich's way. There is an argument about how it will come. It is not in one of the nine primary areas to which we were minded to give unitary status; the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) mentioned Exeter in that connection. Norwich is singled out and it is said that if we can widen the boundaries just outside Norwich—there is no green belt there now; areas have all merged together—to territory such as Sprowston and Hellesdon, we really have a chance to meet the five criteria. Everything I hear indicates that there is great hope that that might happen. That means that the local education authority loses its right to look after those schools, including Heartsease, Blyth-Jex and Sprowston. That reflects a difference from where we started, taking one school out of the system and trying to make it very different. It would be divisive to do such a thing in the current situation. I hope that the Minister will listen when we meet him to discuss that issue. Unitary status changes everything.
	The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families has made some authentic claims about changing the criteria for academies, not dramatically but just enough. He said that it is just not enough to have a lot of money to be a good sponsor. One has to show leadership, innovation and commitment to act in the public interest. If one is going to run education, it would help to know a little about it before taking those responsibilities on. That is beginning to change, in terms of how the academy programme is rolling out across the country. There is a long way to go, but people are beginning to realise that sponsorship may not be the way to develop better standards in education. There may be better ways, such as addressing the size of the school or the interaction between schools. If someone gave me £25 million, I could take those three schools into the stratosphere, including Nobel prizes or whatever.
	Schools need better buildings and playing fields. The science labs at Sprowston high school are mediaeval. I had a meeting the other week with the director of education for the county and we showed him the appalling labs. The wooden desks have things like "Tony loves Cherie" scrawled all over them. We used to love such desks, but labs in good schools now look completely different. All those schools need an investment of money, and to interact with each other. That has started to happen with the sixth forms and it could happen in other areas of school endeavour.
	I also wish to raise a point that someone made recently in a big meeting about academies, and that is the human rights of people in academies. Are they covered by the 1944 Education Act and the rest of the 9 ft pile of legislation and regulations on education and grant-maintained schools and the rest? A lawyer from the eminent Matrix chambers, which I seem to remember hearing of somewhere before, said that that has not been tested yet, so that is another problem.
	I do not think that the academy proposal has been considered in terms of value for the £25 million that the sponsor gets to do what they like, such as appointing governors and so on. Because of the unitary status situation, it will take time to discuss with other local councils how they can work better together and how the schools and other services will be taken from the county council and brought under the umbrella of the unitary authority. In those circumstances, I call for a moratorium on the academy programme. The judgments that have been made so far are unsound, such as the questionnaire that I have mentioned. If one looks at the education situation in the round, the academy proposal will not give us a well funded, accountable or fair school system in my part of Norwich.

Kate Hoey: The first issue that I shall raise has already been raised by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). That is no surprise, because it is the question of the closure of the emergency clinic at the Maudsley hospital. All the Members of Parliament in south London, the two local authorities of different political persuasions and health scrutiny committees of different political persuasion united to say that they did not want it closed and that they did not want it moved to an inferior position at King's College hospital. The former Secretary of State for Health did not listen to any words that we said. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will make a point of drawing this matter to the attention of the new Secretary of State for Health even though that has already been done.
	The local paper, the  South London Press, has led a very good campaign on this issue, and has really got people in south London to see mental health issues as central to the problems that many of my constituents and other Members in south London face. Each week now in the  South London Press we read of people who have been treated very badly indeed, and we read of the bureaucracy that is involved in that change. And yet £6 million was going to be spent, although it has not been spent yet, to move a service that nobody wanted moved. I still do not understand the reasoning behind that.
	I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made three changes in the last week or two, and all of them are on issues on which I voted against my own Government—on the questions of cannabis, casinos and 24-hour licensing. I am hopeful that, over the next few weeks and perhaps by the time that we come back in the autumn, there will be more changes on policies on which I was against the Government and on which they have now seen the error of their ways. I hope that the new Secretary of State will look again at the issue that I have raised, because it is not too late to change.
	I also wish to draw to the House's attention the way in which the ballots for arm's length management organisations are carried out and I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will refer it to whichever Minister is responsible for monitoring the conduct of those ballots. There has recently been a ballot in Lambeth for an ALMO and I was ashamed by the way that my borough handled it. The ballot form was biased and set out in a way that was clearly one-sided. Something like £400,000 was spent on glossy brochures, DVDs and all sorts of other things that were sent to tenants, and they amounted to propaganda as to why the tenants should have their housing put out to an ALMO. Despite all that, there were questions such as
	"Are you aware that the ALMO could attract over £200 million of additional investment to make homes decent in Lambeth?
	Yes No Don't know
	Are you aware that with the ALMO for Lambeth you will remain tenants and leaseholders of the Council?
	Yes No Don't know".
	The whole ballot form was not in any way a fair way to ask tenants' opinions, especially after the expenditure of £300,000.
	Ironically, of the 30,986 council housing tenants and residents who had the right to vote, the total number of valid votes cast was 8,278. Of that, the number voting yes was 3,518, the number voting no was 3,362 and the number voting "don't know" was 1,398. The council leadership portrayed that as a great victory for the ALMO and claimed that it had received the support of 52 per cent. of the tenants voting. However, when we add the figures up, we see that a minority of the people voting voted for an ALMO. I ask the Deputy of Leader of the House to make sure that the Minister responsible is made aware of that.
	Although we need extra resources to improve the homes in my borough, setting up a bureaucratic way of proceeding is not what residents and tenants want. I hope that Ministers will study that carefully and realise that Lambeth council would have done much better to spend its money and resources on improving the repair system and the whole system for the management of housing rather than on paying overtime to extra staff to knock on doors so many times that the residents told them to go away and locked their doors. Lambeth might then have had the chance to become a two-star housing authority, which it is not.
	Instead of Lambeth council wasting money, it could have campaigned for the fourth option of direct investment in local authority housing. That is needed and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is moving towards greater support for council housing. I am fed up with the terms "affordable housing" and "social housing". Let us get back to using the term "council housing", because that is what people mean when they talk about improving some of the housing. It does not mean that other types of housing cannot be built, but people know what council housing means and that is what we want.
	The House should not adjourn until it has debated another issue. For 150 years, we had a wonderful universal postal service that was carried out by the Royal Mail. It was the envy of the world, with low, uniform stamp prices and six-day deliveries. I believe that the rapid introduction of full liberalisation in January 2006—well ahead of all other European countries—has created an unlevel competitive playing field for the Royal Mail that is now threatening its commercial viability and the future of the universal service. Postcomm has not carried out its duty very well in allowing foreign competitors to enter the UK market while denying the same opportunity for Royal Mail to compete in Europe. As the Communication Workers Union predicted, competition has amounted to cherry picking and to allowing the private competitors to cream off the Royal Mail's most profitable bulk mail business. Real competition has proved a myth, with no other competitor being prepared to develop a national collection and do all the things that we are so used to with Royal Mail.
	Those who run Royal Mail, Mr. Leighton and—I've forgotten his name, but I do know him.  [ Interruption. ] Mr. Crozier. They have got themselves into a situation where they are refusing to negotiate properly with the Communication Workers Union. I have a long association with the Communications Workers Union, dating back to when it was the old Union of Communication Workers, and I know that the people who work for the Post Office do not want to strike. However, the Royal Mail has handled the situation appallingly. It goes on about huge salary increases for its workers, who actually earn a small amount, while people such as Crozier award themselves huge amounts of extra money every year. Over the summer, the Government need to get involved, address the issue, and knock some heads together at Royal Mail.
	There are two final issues that I would like to mention. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) will probably have more to say about one of them. It is quite wrong that we are going off for the long recess without having a proper debate on the need for a referendum on the European Union constitution. For me, it is still a constitution. It is disgraceful that, unless it has been produced today, we still have not seen an English edition of the so-called constitutional treaty. It is quite clear that the vast majority of the original 250 proposals in that constitution are there in black and white as they were before. A very strong commitment was given in the manifesto that I stood on that we would have a referendum on that constitution, and we need a referendum. The demands for that will grow over the summer. Before we come back in the autumn, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will change his mind on that, as we changed our minds on the original referendum—unfortunately, we were not able to have that referendum because other countries voted against the constitution.
	Finally, a lot of my constituents will be travelling this summer. They will be flying off and using the airports. I want to put in a word for some kind of reality check on the question of terrorism and the various measures that have been introduced. I am absolutely certain that one of the things that the terrorists want to do is to change our way of life and to change the basic idea in this country that we do things within the law and we do not change our behaviour too much. I am afraid that, as a constant traveller—quite often I go back and forward to Northern Ireland, where there is no alternative but to fly—I have noticed the attitude and the way in which people handle the security process. Quite honestly, if anyone wanted to do something, they would simply do it around the long queues at check-in and security.
	The Government have to allow a more common-sense approach to hand luggage. I had tiny bottle of blackberry jam, which my mother made, taken off me because it was slightly bigger than the size of blackberry jam that I would have been allowed to carry. There is no common sense in the attitude to the kind of measures that are being taken. Unless we take people with us on the measures, people will react. Although everyone wants to see normal security carried out, they do not want to see more and more people acting as if they just quite enjoy having a little bit of power over ordinary people. I hope that, over the summer, Transport Ministers do not react too much to suggestions that there should be even tighter security. We should take a common sense approach and recognise that the answer to terrorism does not lie in just making the lives of everybody in this country more difficult.
	I am sure that many other Members want to speak. May I wish you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and all the staff a good long recess? We London MPs do not disappear off; we are usually seen wandering around the House of Commons where lots of work is going on, because we do not go off unless we are actually on holiday.

Gisela Stuart: In this debate, it is customary to raise constituency issues, but I do not want to do that this afternoon. I want to debate a Government Green Paper and a document that is not yet available, because this is the last opportunity before the summer recess to do so.
	The Green Paper "The Governance of Britain" is excellent and I welcome it. In it, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House commit themselves to much greater involvement by the public and Parliament in our constitutional decisions. They state that they
	"want to forge a new relationship between government and citizen, and begin the journey towards a new constitutional settlement".
	The document briefly recounts how the British constitution evolved. It mentions at great length on a number of occasions the Council of Europe and the European convention on human rights. However, there is only one reference to the European Union, namely:
	"in 1973, the UK joined the European Economic Community (now the European Union) and became a part of a multinational political structure."
	The document does not mention the Single European Act and the Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice treaties, which I think are extremely important in the evolution of our constitutional settlement. Page 19 briefly refers to the process of EU treaty ratification, but otherwise the EU is absent. For example, the document includes a list of public appointments that could be subject to affirmative hearings, but I think that European Commissioner is a classic example of an appointment that should be open to a scrutiny hearing.
	The document encourages us to reinvigorate our democracy, and it mentions
	"the Government's wish to ensure that decision-making is done at the right level: whether national, regional or in the local community".
	It also discusses the youth citizenship commission and voting rights, but, again, there is no mention of the EU. We have a whole Green Paper on the governance of Britain that completely leaves out the source of some 60 per cent. of our domestic legislation in areas such as health and trade. When was the last time we saw Department of Trade and Industry legislation? There is no mention of the European Parliament, other than mentioning the change in voting rights, which is a sad omission in what is otherwise an exceptionally good document.
	One part of the document attempts to define the values of Britain, and it considers with some envy the way in which the French or even the Americans have managed to do that. In the UK, we could make much more of the rule of law as one of the key values by which we define ourselves.
	At least we can discuss that Green Paper, because we can read it. I think that the second document is called "The EU Reform Treaty". I want to make it clear that I am not against the European Union—far from it; my whole life has been a product of its evolution. However, it is sometimes disheartening how those on the Treasury Bench manage to pigeonhole anybody who has anything even marginally critical to say about it as being completely antediluvian—to want to withdraw immediately and go back to being little Englanders saying, "Fog in the Channel: continent cut off." That is not the point. I am in favour of the European Union, but I would like it to work properly. We should have the right to discuss this, and not pretend that the elephant in the room does not exist.
	People say that the call for a referendum is an old Tory agenda, but I would have thought that it was a classic new Labour agenda. We are the party that has asked the people far more often than any other party has done before. The Conservatives never went to the people—they were afraid to do so. We have had local referendums and referendums on devolution. We had a referendum on whether Birmingham should have an elected mayor. I was absolutely delighted to go into the 2005 general election with a manifesto commitment that we would have a referendum on the then constitutional treaty, but it was extraordinary that the former Prime Minister did not give its constitutional implications as the reason for seeking the people's opinion.
	Now we have the new treaty. In the past two and a half hours I have managed to skim through the first 26 pages of the 118-page document, which is still so far an unofficial translation. We are leaving for the recess and will not come back until October, when all the negotiations and deals will have been done, yet the purpose of this new democratic settlement, which started five or six years ago, was to involve the people and national Parliaments more. I do not want to get into whether this document contains 90 or 95 per cent. of the old constitutional treaty; all I will say is that I can see, having skimmed through it, that all the big items are still in there. I do not want to fall into the trap whereby we assume that anything that has been taken out must therefore be good and anything that has been put in is bad. That is not true. People really need to read this properly. One of the things that I just spotted is on page 26, where, under the heading "Ordinary revision procedure", it says that
	"any Member State, the European Parliament or the Commission"
	can bring forward proposals that
	"aim to increase or reduce the competencies conferred on the Union in the treaties."
	That would be, for the first time, a mechanism for returning powers, which is extremely good.
	The new treaty also claims to give more power to national Parliaments, but that is extremely misleading. What it does is extraordinary. For the first time, the Union tries to put a duty on national Parliaments to behave in a particular way. We do not bind our successor Parliaments, yet we are being asked to accept a document that says:
	"National Parliaments shall contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union".
	There is a whole list of ways in which we are supposed to fulfil that role—we will be informed, we will be seeing to things, we will taking part, and we will be notified, but will have no teeth other than in facilitating the functioning of the Union. I am sorry, but I have never perceived having a duty to serve the Union to be my role as a national parliamentarian—I thought that it was supposed to be the other way round.
	The document still contains the citizens initiative whereby more than 1 million people across a number of member states are being given the right to initiate legislation—something that national Parliaments have not done.
	I suggest to the Deputy Leader of the House that the Government should stop going on about what percentage of the treaty is what it was before and look at it properly. The Government say that the red lines that we have secured mean that we do not need a referendum, but those matters were already protected in the constitutional treaty on which we were prepared to have a referendum—nothing has changed. Opt-outs are continually politically vulnerable to pressure every time a crisis occurs. This is now a question of trust. It is a question of having given a commitment to a referendum on a document that we say is good for Britain. We should ask the people to endorse that. If we are so confident that it is good, we should have the confidence to ask the people.
	The Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Europe deny that the treaty is substantial enough for us to be bound by that promise. Are they being deliberately disingenuous or are they ill-informed? I suggest to them some light summer reading—read the treaty, in English or in French. They can then come back and we can decide which one of the two interpretations is correct.

John Robertson: It is a pleasure to follow the positive contribution of the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess).
	I had hoped to discuss several issues on a national and an international basis, but, given that other hon. Members have cut down their contributions, I shall do likewise. I will therefore concentrate on my constituency and the work done by the few to help the many. I want specifically to refer to those with disabilities and especially a radio station called Insight.
	Insight Radio was once called VIP On Air and deals with people who are blind or partially sighted. The station delivers information, has music programmes, newspaper readings and book readings that people can tune into, and generally helps people who have a sight problem. Insight Radio is a community radio station and broadcasts via a mast in the centre of my constituency at Anniesland Cross to radius of about 5 km. The station is also on the internet and broadcasts all over the world. It receives contributions from contacts in Australia and Canada, as well as other countries in Europe. The station does an excellent job, and I see my job here as being to try to assist it.
	Let me tell a story about why Insight Radio came into existence and why it wants to give information to blind people. There was a train from Glasgow to Edinburgh. The Edinburgh station at the end of line is Waverly—the other of the two main stations is the stop before, at Haymarket. ScotRail, which was in charge of the service at that time, put notices on all the seats in the train to tell everybody that the train would not stop at Waverly, but that it would stop at Haymarket. That was really good for people who could read the signs and knew that they were there, but blind passengers would have known nothing about it. Needless to say, two blind people got off at Haymarket, but thought that they were in Waverly and did not know where to go.
	Insight Radio provides a service in telling people that kind of information. Unfortunately, people have to have a computer, and blind people can have problems with computers, but the facilities and the technology are advancing and we hope that they will move further. I see part of my job as being to help Insight Radio get on to Sky radio services and freeview, so that it can deliver the service to approximately 2 million in this country who have such problems. That is one of the campaigns in which I hope to be involved when we return after the summer recess.
	Another campaign that I took up some years ago was on ATMs. It was pleasing when the Select Committee on Treasury took it up and Ministers jumped onboard, too. That was great, but when I first raised the issue back in early 2005, I did so in connection with a constituent who had gone to the ATM to get some money out. He had £40 in his account. Unfortunately, the ATM charged him £1.75 to get his money out, which meant that he could get only £30 out. That meant that the rest of his money just had to sit there, and in Yoker, in my constituency, that extra £8.25 could have gone a long way. Unfortunately, if my constituent had wanted to go to a free ATM, he would have had to pay a bus fare, which would have cost him £1.50. That was totally unfair, so I took up the cause, along with many others. I worked closely with a newspaper in Glasgow called the  Evening Times, which was helpful. The newspaper helped to broaden the campaign and the Committee took it up, too, which also helped.
	I was pleased to receive a phone call last year—funnily enough, in the first week of the recess—from the Royal Bank of Scotland to say that the campaign had worked and that the bank was about to install 400 free ATMs throughout the UK. Since then, HBOS has also announced its intention to install 100 free cash machines in low-income areas in Scotland and the north of England; 74 have been installed so far, of which 38 are in Scotland. It is still looking for sites for the other 26, however, and if any hon. Members in those areas are looking for a free ATM, they should please get in touch either with me or with HBOS, which I am sure will try to install them in any deserving area. This campaign has given a lot of pleasure when things go right, and it is pleasing to know that I am now having difficulty in pinpointing sites for the other ATMs from HBOS that are not too close to other free ATMs.
	The first that I know of was put into a credit union by the Royal Bank of Scotland, and I want to see the idea being taken up by other credit unions, so that people who are paying money into a credit union do not have to take it there from a bank and perhaps run the risk of being mugged or attacked on the way. The bank was very helpful. Nationwide must also be congratulated on the work that it has done. HBOS started the red and green notices on the ATMs, but Nationwide took that a step further. It did a lot of work on the red and green stickers, which show which ATMs are free to use and which involve paying a fee.
	I hope that the Treasury Select Committee, the Government and hon. Members on both sides of the House will take note of this project. I believe that there is a case for taking it forward, particularly in rural areas, where people have been short-changed—no pun intended—by the banks. I do not live in a rural area, but I am quite happy to lend any assistance that hon. Members might require to contact the right people. This is certainly something that we, as Members of Parliament, should be doing to help our constituents.
	I want to mention the communications allowance that has been given to Members of Parliament. I know that some Opposition Members did not think that it was a great idea, but let me tell them, it will allow me to contact every one of my constituents. I am going to do that this summer by putting out a questionnaire to ask them what they want and what they think are the most important issues. I, as their Member of Parliament, can then address the matters that they think are important. I can then go back to them and they will be able to tell me whether I have done my job or not. Come the next general election, whenever it might be, they will have the opportunity either to vote for me or to replace me, but at least I will not have had to say that I did not have the opportunity to contact them and to let them know what I was doing, or that they could not contact me to tell me about their issues.
	I want to talk about the draft legislative programme and the Queen's Speech. I have tried twice already—and I shall keep trying until I succeed—to introduce a Bill on employment retention and rehabilitation leave. People who become disabled or whose disability gets worse while they are in employment and who want to remain in employment should be given the opportunity to do so while being supported not only by the company but by the Government. They should be enabled to get back into work where they can pay their taxes, which will give money to the Treasury, and give valuable work to their employer, to whom they might feel that they owe something for having looked after them. I hope that hon. Members will support that measure when it comes back.
	I want briefly to mention yesterday's announcement about the ships to be built in Scotstoun in my constituency, which has secured the employment of 2,000 workers. I also want to reiterate my point to the Secretary of State that I am still looking for the seventh and eighth Type 45 destroyers, and I certainly want to take part in the debate on defence procurement on the second day after we come back from the recess, to talk about what we are going to do with the MARS—military afloat research and sustainability—ships and to ensure that shipbuilding in the United Kingdom is up and running and will continue for quite a few years to come.

Julia Goldsworthy: I was not intending to touch on the issue of the local government review, but following the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), I shall do so. My part of the world is also going to see a new council. I greatly share the hon. Gentlemen's concern that in the transition period, the assets of previous councils will need to be monitored very carefully so that they are not disposed of in a way that undermines the set-up of the new council. There will need to be greater devolution and a drawing down of powers from central Government to the new authority—an issue that Members in the Cornwall area will closely monitor.
	It has been a very interesting debate. I shall touch on a couple of issues raised by other hon. Members. I believe that both the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) and the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) referred to access to banking.
	It struck me that one of the key ways for people to gain access to free banking is through their local post office. A number of banks allow their account holders to withdraw cash free of charge from the local post office. It is important to put on record how important that service can be, particularly in rural areas. When the House returns after the recess, perhaps we should look into encouraging all banks to provide that service and support the post office in that way.
	The hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Davies) raised the issue of Remploy—its factory in my constituency is being proposed for closure. It is important that services for people with disabilities reflect the 21st century. I share the hon. Gentleman's concern that a number of people who have been employed by Remploy for a very long period have almost become institutionalised. It will be difficult for them to adjust to a new setting. In addition, Cornwall is very isolated, and people who may end up being based at another Remploy factory may have to travel greater distances. The needs of those vulnerable people must not be forgotten in the consultation process.
	I wish to raise a constituency issue that is causing considerable concern: the proposed changes to fire cover across Cornwall, and particularly the proposal to downgrade two fire stations in my constituency, Falmouth fire station and Camborne fire station, which are the only two fire stations in Cornwall that provide 24-hour whole-time cover. Downgrading those stations to whole-time day cover only would mean that, across Cornwall, there would only be a retained service on offer at night.
	To provide some background for those who are not familiar with Cornwall's geography, the fire authority is within the county council, but that covers an area of 3,500 sq km, and has only one neighbouring authority—the rest of it is surrounded by sea. In the vast majority of cases, it cannot rely on help and assistance from other authorities, so it must be self-contained. The authority has a total of 31 stations, 20 of which are entirely retained, five of which are day-crewed—precisely because of difficulties recruiting retained staff, as many people are self-employed and must travel all over the county, and hence cannot respond in time—and two of which are the 24-hour whole-time cover stations in Falmouth and Camborne.
	Those two stations cover the most densely populated part of Cornwall. Camborne has a population of about 50,000 people and will grow further, and that was not taken into account when the proposals were put forward. Falmouth fire station not only has responsibilities to the town and surrounding area but to the docks and further out to sea, if there are problems there. In addition, both stations have specialist equipment that has been used to provide assistance all over Cornwall, for instance in the flooding at Boscastle. When there were blizzards on Goss moor, and people were stranded, that equipment was used to help. The stations are therefore not just an asset to their immediate community but provide an invaluable service to the rest of Cornwall, yet they are under threat of being downgraded under proposals currently being considered.
	I want the Deputy Leader of the House to take back for consideration by the relevant Ministers the issue of how this situation transpired and what the Government can do to assist. Ultimately, it has transpired because Cornwall's local government has one of the lowest levels of funding in the country. As with other areas, Government grants have not kept pace with the cost of service delivery. As a result, there is an overall deficit of £15 million to be overcome. There is also the capping on council tax—the regressive council tax would not address the problem even if the Government tried.
	Consequently, we are seeing cuts to a whole range of services. Adult social care has had no choice but to withdraw support for those with the lowest levels of need. The fire service is facing cuts of £1 million in costs—the equivalent of a cut of one sixth of the whole-time work force. Although that will be achieved without compulsory redundancies, it has significant implications for the cover across Cornwall.
	The Government's nationally set targets conflict with what the fire authority is trying to achieve. According to the first public service agreement, the authority is required to reduce accidental fire-related deaths in the home by 10 per cent. and deliberate fires by 20 per cent. by 2010. The fire authority has already done a lot to reduce such occurrences, by providing a greater retained service, which it was asked to do, and by doing more school visits and so on. Therefore, it is already delivering. At the same time, however, there is a requirement to find efficiency savings totalling £105 million by 2007-08.
	The problem is that, because the authority delivered efficiency savings and because things were so tight ahead of that requirement, the only way that it is going to make those further efficiency savings is to make front-line cuts. I ask the Deputy Leader of the House to take that back to the relevant Department. When setting that efficiency target to pay for the pay deal for firefighters, what account did the Government take of authorities such as Cornwall that have already delivered efficiencies and whose only alternative therefore is to make front-line cuts? Are they happy that, in areas such as Cornwall where efficiencies have already been delivered, there will be virtually impossible challenges in delivering both those targets?
	We are already seeing the results in Cornwall, particularly in the area that I represent, of the freeze in recruitment in previous years. The local newspaper called Camborne
	"the arson capital of Cornwall",
	where there were
	"218 attacks in the towns and their surrounding villages in the last 12 months, nearly a quarter of the 941 suspicious fires in the whole of Cornwall."
	At the very time when arson appears to be increasing across the area, we are having to look at proposals to make cuts.
	Serious questions have to be asked about the integrated risk management plan process, which had the task of trying to deliver those cuts to make the books balance. The response to a parliamentary question that I tabled stated:
	"Fire and Rescue Authorities (FRAs) are required by the Fire and Rescue Service National Framework to have in place and maintain an Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP) which reflects local need and sets out plans to tackle effectively both existing and potential risks to communities."—[ Official Report, 16 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 76W.]
	But that bears little relationship to the correspondence that I have had with the chief fire officer, who is clear that the reason behind looking at cuts and looking again at the IRMP was the financial situation, not the risks. Undoubtedly cuts to the number of staff and the level of cover will have an impact on the risk to people living in that community.
	The council and the chief fire officer are trying to do the right thing in coming forward with the proposals. They have openly acknowledged that those proposals are the least worst option, not the best option, and the chief fire officer himself said:
	"I had to recommend this objective because I had to make savings. The downgrading of Falmouth and Camborne is purely a consequence of the budget".
	Therefore, the people of Falmouth and Camborne are being asked to meet the brunt of the so-called cost-effectiveness drive, knowing that it will result in longer call-out times and that there will be knock-on effects across the county. The county council has agreed to look at that again and to undertake a risk assessment. I cannot believe that it was not required to do one in the first place. Will the Minister go back to the Department and say that there are serious pressures?
	As a constituent wrote to me recently, people in Cornwall are not asking for fire services that are better than anywhere else in the country. We just think that we deserve the same level of fire service as the rest of the country. We do not want lives to be threatened because we have become the only county in the whole of England that has no whole-time fire cover at night.

Simon Hughes: For the second time, I present a petition about a matter that I raised during the debate on the Adjournment. My friend the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) also raised it. The hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara) warmly recognised that it was an important issue, and the Parliamentary Secretary referred to it.
	I last did this job on 18 May, just before the implementation of the decision by the then Secretary of State for Health to close the 24-hour emergency clinic at the Maudsley hospital. The service was retained for longer than originally planned because of concerns and inadequate alternatives. The Government responded to initial pressure by putting much more money into King's College hospital. However, although the service has been transferred, it does not fulfil the community's needs.
	I therefore have many more signatures from people who are residents of the London boroughs of Southwark, Lambeth, Croydon, Lewisham and others.
	We have a new Prime Minister and a new Secretary of State for Health. We request that they consider the matter afresh. I hope that the petition will be well received and not fall on stony ground.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of the London Boroughs of Southwark, Lambeth, Croydon, Lewisham and others declares the Petitioners' serious concerns about the decision to close the 24 hour emergency mental health clinic at the Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill in Camberwell.
	The Petitioners further declare their anxiety that new replacement facilities at King's College Hospital will not be ready for a further 18 months and that even then they may not constitute an adequate replacement.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Health to postpone the full closure of the 24 hour emergency mental health clinic until the incoming Prime Minister and Health Ministers have an opportunity to review the situation.
	 To lie upon the Table.